Stars in the Dark
by Serpenthyne
Summary: A story that focuses on S-Tha, a young Luminoth who puts herself in an unlikely search for war, for reasons she barely knows. Her fate is masked by the invisible path set before her, but she is determined to find out what it is. Please read and review.


**AN: All fan-created characters belong to Temporal Flickerbat, plagiarism is prohibited, she does not own Metroid, at all (save for copies of the games)...blah, blah blah - c'mon, let's get to the fun stuff!  
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**As always, questions and constructive criticism are welcome. I know this is a bit short, but I hope you enjoy!**

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**Prologue**

_Years have passed since Aether received its scar. A funny thing, that - it wasn't truly a scar at all, unless you'd count a loss of energy as a physically tangible thing. I guess they, or the scholars at least, do._

_Everyone already knows the tale of how half of our planetary energy was taken - the way the Energy Controllers suddenly dimmed the moment the explosive rock hit Aether... How we tried to find out what was going on, why our planet was so weak - until we discovered a sister dimension. One not of our world given sometimes glaring sunlight, but rather, one of a world eternally plunged into venomous shadows, lest we rid ourselves of it. And how?_

_Using the Energy Transfer Module - but I think that creating it was a mistake. Nobody knew what we were up against. We, in a hasty bid to win back Aether's power, have now likely doomed her to death. Creatures they call the Ing took the Module for themselves, and then turned to target our half of Aether's energy. They stole Agon's energy first, secreted it away within their black wasteland... I have heard, from soldiers' tales, that it is a desolate place far worse than the scorching sun and sands of our own Agon. A place where a swirling mass of black and purple clouds encircle the sky permanently, where dust and grit are constantly kicked up and tossed to new places. Scattered, by swift and short winds, those that whisper death above the grounds. Life there is incredibly scarce - Ing and only Ing reside in this utterly dry place, where lightning stabs the bare, sandy ground in glass-fusing bites that come swift like the cobra's strike._

_And now it doesn't matter anymore where they are in there, or where they've been. Now they've taken the Transfer Module somewhere else,__ heading ever so steadily for Torvus. Our forces there are already failing, and our greatest minds scramble for still-newer technology that will give us a foothold into their dark realm. The Sanctuary Fortress prepares in hesitant advance, building machines and mechanoids, security drones and every metallic thing with sentience they can think of. These defensive creations will assist their low number of Luminoth soldiers..._

_...But with one important difference between them. A machine cannot be taught to recognize signs of Ing attack, the possessive strike that, in Luminoth, would immediately be followed by self-termination. Machines can be rigged to explode in such cases, but that presents a problem on the densely packed battlefield. So while they wait, technicians and famed inventors are trying to swiftly create stable, efficient methods of mechanical termination in the case of an onslaught. With they way things are going, it seems like fate that they, too, will one day be hit in full force.  
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_So then, that rock from space, figuratively speaking, was not a rock at all. It was a bomb just waiting to explode into a messy chaos of war... With enough force to tear a gap to a brand-spankin'-new dimension. How's that for interesting?_

_To _me_, though, it was like some random story shoving its reality into mine, forcibly intertwining the two. A fairy tale or something, come to life. The way the world was split in two, a dark world and a light world - one way or another, in stories, the hero comes along and saves the world of light. Because light is good, always pure, loving, holy, and all that?_

_...I don't know._

_I like the dark. I can hardly sleep if there's the faintest gleam of reflected sunlight coming through a window.  
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_The people say, 'the Ing are what they are'. Their name supposedly means 'terror', and all the stories of battles and brawls, skirmishes...all of them say that they are cruel beasts of ruin and destruction._

_I always doubted the stories at first. How entire bands of soldiers, with the finest training for miles around, would go to war and...die. Just like that. Even as new technologies were being invented, we were fighting a losing war. Sure, I _knew _there were battles and deaths and invasions going on, but I didn't believe it._

_I had never cared. The war didn't seem to be anywhere near me. Time passed, and nothing changed. I felt like it was something to scare children and keep them in line, with stories of these 'Ing' creatures._

_The Ing have taken the Transfer Module, a past, done deal - a known fact - and still I continued to live like nothing was wrong. Unworried, unhurried... Not in the slightest concerned about the world's peril. I felt so __distant from it. It felt as though it had nothing to do with me, would never come near me.__ I lived in a remote part of the Temple Grounds - surely they wouldn't dare to come near our most sacred of fortresses? They knew we would be massing our forces, trying to predict and follow wherever they would show next.  
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_But, recently, I went to one of those public sendoffs. You know, where a group of common people with permission gather to send off a bunch of soldiers. Watch them go through a portal, basically.  
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_And when I saw the portal, I believed it...them. All those stories, previously about nothing.  
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_I don't know how to explain what a portal looks like - just like everyone imagines, I guess. A round, trans-space (in our specific case, transdimensional) transportation apparatus. But, these portals to Dark Aether... They're black, I swear. Not like a dimly lit night, not like a pitch-black room. Not even like empty space. They're...that kind of blackness that just...is unnerving. Those portals, you don't need to travel through them to see what's on the other side - you'd already know by taking a single glance at the face of one._

_You know what the funny thing is? When I saw those brave, few-in-number soldiers go through that bulging gate of squid-ink color... Some faint longing twitched at the edge of my heart. I wouldn't have minded following them.  
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_I know it sounds ridiculous - _me,_ S-Tha, going to war? My mother would hardly allow it, and would see my father as an excuse. He, U-Tha, is already fighting in the war. I'm used to his being gone, because for a long time he worked as a miner in Agon, only coming home when he was sure he could. He was very serious about his line of work, and I'm not sure how I feel about his possible emotions concerning this war. How serious and determined he is about it, seeing as it's his new job. Things like that...  
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_Really, I'm not sure exactly why I want to go to war. It's not because I want to follow in my father's footsteps. Hell, like I said, I'm not too sure if he fights truly, willingly. I don't know how I'll manage, anyway - as far as combat training goes, I'm probably too small for the job. Rumors are everywhere, spreading like disease, that they are now even willing to accept children to fight in the war. Not that I'm a child - at least on the outside - but I think this may be my chance._

_The real reason...? I think I love the night too much. Am I nuts?_

_...Maybe..._

~From the Journal of S-Tha


End file.
